


Play, Guitar Play

by romanticalgirl



Category: Country Music RPF, Drive-By Truckers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the lines in my song</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play, Guitar Play

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/) for beta-duty. And it's really all because of [this](http://blurt-online.com/news/view/3547/). MIKE COOLEY WHAT ARE YOU?
> 
> Originally posted 3-29-10

Patterson can’t stop laughing, which makes Cooley smile, because Patterson with a full on happy is one of the reasons Mike got into this band in the first place. Patterson’s like a big kid, all joy and stupid, and when he’s drunk and cracking up it’s like someone put whiskey in the dog’s water and Mike’s never sure if that means Patterson’s gonna start pissing on the furniture or licking and sniffing someone’s crotch.

Not that Mike’s all that sober himself. Hell, Mike’s not even close to sober. He hasn’t been since they finished recording and realized they’d made two fucking records without even trying and whatever groove they thought they had is even better than what they thought it was, and things are moving and gelling. It doesn’t hurt that they’re going to be playing with Tom _fucking_ Petty and hitting venues that are going to make some of the cities they’ve played in look small.

It’s a pretty damn good time to be a fucking Drive By Trucker. Which is what he tells Patterson right before he agrees to release the single. He makes Patterson swear they’ll release it as a Truckers single, because he’s always said that they day he puts out a Mike Cooley solo album – or anything close to it – will be when the Truckers are done, and they ain’t even fucking close to done, so Patterson agrees, because he knows Mike might talk shit, but he doesn’t talk shit about music or their band.

Of course, that leads them to this, because Patterson can’t fucking say _sitar_ without nearly pissing himself and Cooley has no intention of being _outdone_. So he pulls out his Aunt Lucille’s ancient red velvet couch she got from a brothel in Kentucky and the pink feather boa that he got off the drag queen at that strip club in Seattle and the parasol Patterson stole for Shonna from that restaurant in Michigan. It’s a _photo op_ , and it’s ri-fucking-diculous, but it makes them all laugh, and there’s plenty of whiskey to go around, so they get the shot – several shots, and some of them will never see the light of day without Mike ending up in jail for homicide – and just like that it’s done, and just like sex that first time with Marybeth, pretending he knew what the fuck he was doing, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as either one of them expected it to.

Afterwards, it’s just him and Patterson in the room, the walls even darker with the photographer’s umbrella lights gone, and the couch is huge, made for lounging on or fucking on, which he figures is close enough as he closes his eyes and leans on Patterson’s shoulder. Patterson’s solid. Bulky and big like the football player he never was, and he always smells like sweat and soap and joy, and Mike sometimes wonders how the fuck they’re even friends, but he also knows living without Patterson isn’t even an option.

“Hey.” The word is rough from smoking and laughing and drinking and from being Mike Cooley, voice somewhere between a growl and a snarl and a drawl, and Patterson nods, his smile faded around his teeth, but still curled up at the corners. Mike’s seen all the highs and lows Patterson has, knows his moods and his mannerisms like his own. Patterson doesn’t move, barely even seems to breathe, and the air feels heavier than a Georgia afternoon before a storm. There’s history in this room, like everywhere in the south, where there’s never anything new, never anything without ghosts.

“Mike Motherfucking Cooley,” Patterson says, his smile genuine though it’s not his big smile, not the one that he tosses at Mike in the middle of a concert, not the one that’s swinging on water pipes in some basement club belting out _The People Who Died_ or _The Company I Keep_. This is a real one that he saves for family, for friends. This is the one Mike gets jealous of when someone new earns it, the one he hoards and would keep for his own if he could.

“Damn fucking straight.” He laughs, because that’s a joke. Rock and roll was never what he thought it was going to be, not really. Rock and roll wasn’t Madison Square Garden and beer commercials. Rock and roll was touring 50 weeks out of the year and seeing cities and people and road and more road and going through keyboardists and guitarists and the same songs night after night, day after day. Rock and roll was repetition and sweat and cords and amps and small vans and smelly people and washing his socks and underwear out in truck stop and rest area bathrooms. Rock and roll was no one but Patterson every night, being there when he leaned back and being there when he rolled over. Patterson was home, a true fucking north, a bloodhound who could always sniff out Mike’s trail whenever he got lost along the way.

“Your skinny ass been crooked since the day you were dropped on it, coming out of your mama’s womb, smoking and demanding someone give you a tit to suck on.”

“I knew they wouldn’t fork over the whiskey. Speaking of.” He reaches to Patterson’s far hand and takes the bottle from it. “Fork over the whiskey.”

“That’s _mine_.”

“Not anymore.” He kills the bottle, reveling the burn that still manages to hit him, even after all this time, after all these bottles. Patterson raises an eyebrow, but he can’t manage disdain the same way Cooley can, so mostly he looks like he’s kind of curious. Mike shakes his head and sets the bottle down. “C’mere.”

Patterson just looks for a minute longer and then moves in. It’s like an ex-wife or an ex-girlfriend who’s willing to give you one more tumble. Easy and relaxed and you know all the right buttons to push. You know the way to make her come until she’s begging, and if you’d kept it up, you wouldn’t have gotten your ass dumped and poured your heart out to a fucking reel to reel at your kitchen table. Not that either of them beg, and there’s nothing soft. It’s hard muscle and bone, thin lips and stubble, broken capillaries and worn jeans. They tumble off the couch at some point and Patterson curses a blue streak when Cooley falls on top of him, jabbing him in the gut with his elbow and kneeing him in the nuts. Cooley rolls off him, laughing, and Patterson punches him, and Cooley threatens to get the BB gun again and then Patterson has him pinned to the floor and they’re kissing again.

Patterson is teeth and tongue and beard and he attacks Mike’s mouth like there are more lyrics in there, smoke drenched and waterlogged with whiskey, trying to push past all the bullshit and stories to get to the heart of it, and Cooley doesn’t think he can stand to tell Patterson that he’s there, that he _is_ the heart of it, that he would give up everything if he had to, so long as he could keep this, keep _him_. He tells him instead with the kisses he gives in return, thrusting his tongue deep, claiming and possessive and just mean and ornery enough to leave marks, leave Patterson feeling used and swollen, give him that look like he belongs to someone.

They’re too drunk to fuck, and too old and married for it anymore anyway, but they manage to get jeans undone and cocks out and to touch, to find those easy rhythms like someone told them the next song they’re going to play. Somewhere in the background, Mike knows there’s a third guitar playing, but the only sound that matters is the slow steady hum that comes from him and Patterson finding the tune.  



End file.
